Awww! Poor Hermione! Her own parents still not knowing who she was! This was such a great, but sad little one-shot. The emotions that Hermione was suffering through was described so well. You painted a very vivid picture with your descriptions and I found this very interesting and fun to read! Great job!!

great story. i liked that it was different. i liked that hermione wasn´t all bouncy and happy like after the war nothing could go wrong anymore. and i´m totally curious about ron and hermione, who did it turn out for the both of them?Sometimes i missed your point and your storyline became foggy. And why didn´t sh restore the memories of her parents, now that Voldemort is really gone?

Author's Response: She didn't restore her parents' memories due to complications with the spell - when she wiped them, she did a very good job and would have had to teach them instead of just flipping things around. And Ron and Hermione found each other in the end. :) I'll work on clarifying details, since I see your points about it being a bit foggy. Thanks so much for your review!

The insight into Hermione was very deep and I liked how you connected it to her feelings for Ron. You made her seem very out of place and alienated almost in the first part and then gave her that kind of connection with Audrey that I didn't really expect.
A few errors:
'Thankfully, her rainbow-dyed hair did keep her talking about mildly interesting charms every now and the.' you just need to make 'the' into 'then'.
'The two sat in silence in the silence of stacks of parchment perfuming the air.' I would get rid of one of the 'in (the) silence's or put a comma between the two.
Overall, a lovely piece :)
Thanks for entering Annie :D I will get the results out asap :)
Sophie

Author's Response: Thank you so much for leaving such an awesome review! Eek, thanks for pointing out the errors! *scurries off to fix them* I think the war did very curious things to Hermione, so she's very much out of her comfort zone here and really different from the Hermione I normally think of, so it was a really interesting story to write. Thanks so much for your review! :)

wow... just wow.
It's amazing how in so few words, with no dialogue (maybe because there's no dialogue) you have created this beautiful and heart wrenching story.

I'd never thought about Hermione's parents. I guess in some vague place in the back of my mind I'd figured that the memory charm would be reversed, or would wear off. But to imagine that it never did - to imagine that her own mother and father wouldn't recognize her - is terrible.

In this short story, you made me think so much about Hermione's sacrifice and how brave she must have been.

This is a beautiful story. Thank you so much for posting this.

~Gill

Author's Response: Thank you so much for the review Gill! I'm so glad you liked it! :)

The challenge I did this for made me really think about how hard it must have been for Hermione to not be able to do anything. She had no words that could help her or even much time to spend, so I flet like writing something that reflected her situation would fit the challenge well. It really was a challenge, but I'm glad the end result turned out well. :)

Annie!!!
I told you this when I first read this, but I love it so much! You really showed how Hermione ended up the way she did, but you just made me want to cry. The way Hermione had tried to integrate herself back into her parent's lives was so believable and it must have caused her so much pain. She knew so much about them and had so many memories of them, but at the same time she knew that they had no idea who she was and she just had to keep going.
I like how you showed Hermione's thoughts about conversations over Christmas dinner. It's one of the few times a whole family gets together, but you always find that they tell the most boring of stories sometimes. I can really see Hermione getting bored and wanting to get away, especially considering everything else that would have been on her mind. I can also see how she would hate the way that things we happening. Despite how much she loved them, she was so different from the Weasley's because of the way she was brought up. She was used to how things had been with her parents. Everyone's Christmas is different and adjusting to another after such a long time isn't easy.
I only have two tiny things that I picked up on. 'Thankfully, her rainbow-dyed hair did keep her talking about mildly interesting charms every now and the.' I think the final 'the' should be 'then'. The second thing is that I did get slightly confused by the last paragraph. My interpretation was that she was half dreaming, but I'm still not sure what actually happened in it.
Again, I loved this! Great job with it!! (h)

I saw you had a new Holiday story up and figured it was only appropriate to chose this one to read/review first, lol. I've been out Christmas shopping and wrapping presents all day and I'm already in a Christmasy mood, so this story seemed like the perfect thing to read right now. My first Holiday Fic of the season, yay! I just absolutely LOVE Christmas time, haha! =)

That all being said, this was somewhat depressing. Poor Hermione. It must be terrible to feel more like a guest than a resident in your own childhood home. I mean, it's cool that she is at least able to still visit with them by serving as their Gardner, but at the same time it's terrible that they don't remember she is their daughter. ='(

I'm not quite sure how I feel about the way you have portrayed Audrey here tho. I liked her character, don't get me wrong/ And she definitely seems like that type of person whom I would be friends with in RL, lol! But it's just that, given what we know about Percy, and how relatively up-tight/by-the-books he is, I just found it a tad difficult to believe that he would fall for someone who is as outgoing and different as that. I mean, you'd think Percy would want someone who was just as plain and boring as he is! Or at least he would in my opinion, lol... So that was a little confusing to me, but it's really not that big or important of a detail. Probly just me being too overly nit-picky, lol. Sorry 'bout that! ^_^'

I like the contrast you have developed here between the way Hermione normally spends her Holidays, as opposed to having Christmas here with the Weasleys. I don’t know how I'd handle it if my parents were nearly as obsessive and meticulous as hers were growing up tho, lol. I lived in a house of 4 kids, and we've always had a houseful of family & friends over every year, so my Holidays have always been much like the Weasley's. I wouldn't be able to stand having everything be so in-order and uncomplicated, cuz I'm so used to the chaos, lol. But from what we know about Hermione's character, I really feel like the way your portrayed her family here is very believable tho. I could see her parents acting in that way and having everything so in order. It certainly goes right along with neat and organized Hermione always is.

Overall, I really did enjoy this little one-shot. It was very packed full of emotion for being such a short and simple fic, but I like that about it. You seem to be really good at writing emotion and getting the readers to feel what your character feels. Keep up the great work hun, and best of luck in this challenge!! =D

~Deana~

Author's Response: Thanks so much for your review! I tried to get in the holiday spirit, but somehow poor Hermione ended up having to help carry my bad day. I can't imagine having to be in her situation, even if it's better than her parents being killed.

Honestly, Audrey was mostly comic relief and I wasn't sure about her at first, either. I slept on it though, and I've grown to like the idea that Percy needed someone absurd in his life to help him get over all he lost before and during the war. He's pretty plain and boring, but I think seeing his family torn apart and still hurting from when he left them, he might search for a way to prove he isn't the uptight ministry official anymore through his girlfriend. It's kind of counter-intuitive, but I thought the story needed a little something happy, even though I totally see your point and agree it's pretty strange.

I've never lived near any of my extended family, save for my grandparents, so I grew up with a more meticulous Christmas like Hermione, although not quite as bad. It was quite a shock when I went out to visit the rest of my family one year and found all the chaos of a massive Christmas. :P

Wow, this is really sad. I think the way you've explored Hermione's discomfort is really interesting as well. Part of it is the way she compares the chaos of the Weasley house to her memories from her clean, organized life in the Granger house. I think the idea of Hermione being concerned about things being proper and orderly fits in well with her academic style and the way she always kept Harry and Ron on task. Here, though, it seems almost obsessive-compulsive, like Hermione is unraveling as a result of the stress she's been put under. The other part is the way she misses her parents and the odd way she interacts with them now. Not only is it fascinating to see her living from the outside with them, especially as their gardener, but I suspect that her discomfort with the chaos of the food and the house is just a mask for her real discomfort with the loss of her "real" family.

I like the ending, though, because it makes it seem like Hermione might have a brighter future if she can learn to accept Ron's love. I like how he's a quiet observer; he's apparently learned not to waste words, but to study her behavior and act accordingly as he "learns" her over the years. On a less philosophical note, I love Audrey! I can imagine Percy wanting to be with someone who's a bit loony, just to change up his former way of life. It's great that she was there for Hermione, too.

I just feel so sad for Hermione; to not be spending Christmas with her parents because they don't know who she is. I have a sad face. :(

But Ron is there, taking her hand and making her better in some way. He always comes through, Ron. Even when you start to doubt, you shouldn't. Ron is awesome. And you write them really well, I'm a tad jealous :P (can only write Harry... sometimes lol).

Oh I loved this! It was a really different take on having Christmas dinner with the Weasleys and was just absolutely amazing! I loved Hermione's characterization in this oneshot and I really felt bad for her knowing that she was able to be around her parents as their gardener but yet they don't really know who she is. The ending for this was perfect! It made my heart swell with happiness when he grabbed her hand and the hope that maybe he had been watching her at the dinner after all. I loved how you brought in descriptions of both Christmas with her family and then Christmas with the Weasley's and how they are so different. It does take some getting used to when an old tradition changes and I feel bad for Hermione that she wanted to have Christmas with her family but then again doing so would probably hurt so much worse than being at the Weasley's Chirstmas! I very much enjoyed this oneshot! Great Job and good luck on your challenge!